Back in September 2013, iOS 7’s adoption rate was at 52% only a week after its launch. Those numbers quickly rose to 74.1% in December, and now during Apple’s quarterly earnings call, it was revealed that iOS 7 is now installed on 80% of compatible iOS devices around the world. This is a pretty significant number despite the fact that there are a handful of older, but still popular, iOS devices out there who are not eligible for the update. These figures were announced by Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer who called it the most popular operating system in the world, although chances are he might have meant most popular mobile operating system.
To put things into perspective, Android’s latest operating system, Android 4.4 KitKat is at 1.4% in terms of adoption, although presumably those numbers might have increased since we last heard. This is one of the drawbacks to the Android operating system where OEMs sometimes release new devices with older versions still preinstalled, despite the latest build being available. Other hurdles such as carrier approval and device incompatibility are also a factor as to why newer versions of Android are adopted slower compared to iOS. Of course there are those who run custom ROMs based on the latest build of Android, such as CyanogenMod, which aren’t reported, so for all we know, those numbers could be higher.
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